Aug 05
29
Disintermediation
Remember back in the late 90’s when the buzz word for venture capital investment was disintermediation? <?xml:namespace prefix = o />
It was the theoretical driver for on-line commerce as I recall. Then with the implosion of the dot-com era and a general acceptance of the web, the notion of the world going through rapid change seemed to disappear. It seems like a lot of businesses have just gone back to doing what they used to do and expecting life to continue and profitability to increase at 15% year on year.
There’s even talk about “future proofing” infrastructure, like telephone networks that I keep reading about. How can you future proof anything in a world that is truly undergoing change at an accelerated pace? I think what we need instead is more radical scenario planning.
What would happen if tied together some of the significant and repetitive trends that we see constantly in the media? Where would the convergence be? How do the social vectors influence the investment and business vectors?
While people are talking about Peak Oil, Global Warming, Bird Flu, Real Estate, and the economic threat of <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />China what is happening behind the scenes?
In a newsletter on consumer electronics that I just read, I saw that research from consumers is showing that the number one driver in considering purchasing HD equipment is price…. Then design, quality of picture, and lastly features.
This is nothing new of course. The understanding that competitive pricing together with quality product manufacture is what enabled Hyundai and Toyota to become so powerful in their space. And we still haven’t seen the real impact of this on the world. It used to be that what was good for GM was good for America. Now both GM and the US seem to be economically challenged!
The ability to be able to change business models in a truly dynamic marketplace is not an easy thing to pull off. And it’s hard to reconcile that your business may be impacted significantly by things that are a hemisphere away…. Like the demand for consumer goods in China.